Ms. Impellizerri, there is NO money and the cuts are going to happen. What part of that don't you understand? If you want books with no missing pages, then buy some $100 textbooks and donate them. If you think a life skills class is a vital investment, then organize a fund raiser and ask parents for at least $500. That's how the richer districts keep their arts and music classes. If you think there needs to be fewer administrators, that's fine but that's not enough. That's like saying Puerto Rico would not have declared bankruptcy if they had fired a few lawmakers. If pensions are underfunded, it's because CalSTRS and CalPERS use dishonest accounting to hide the real costs of pensions, and teachers' unions want it that way. It's a little late to focus on the kids, and the time for you to complain about busted budgets was three or four years ago and not now while the bridge is collapsing. So I suggest you and your fellow parents submit your thoughtful suggestions what to cut (in addition to administrators) unless you want those decisions to be made for you with a dartboard or a magic 8-ball toy.

I support their right to strike and use the full extent of their power to get a better working contract. But at the same time, when I see that many of the city workers complaining about their "unfair wages" are making literally twice my income, this whole affair starts to seem a little less noble and a little more selfish.

Thank you for this article. This record appears to confirm a longtime plot to stick us with coal dust. Hard to understand, since Mr. Tagami's children live here too, albeit higher up the hill than do those most seriously affected.

There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to gentrification. Both tenants and landlords are between a rock and a hard place. The fast-paced rising cost of living in the Bay Area has left working class citizens unable to keep up. At the same time it's unfair to demand that a mom-and-pop landlord subsidize the cost of living for a tenant for the rest of their life. The only solution to this problem is to build high rises in places with high demand. The Bay Area needs to move away from single family homes and three story buildings just like New York. However, some NIMBY folk oppose this type of development.

Measure JJ didn't go far enough to amend Just Cause in 2016. Hopefully we can get a ballot measure together in 2018 to Close the Loopholes, most notably this one.

Morphy and her family are assailants in the current class war raging in our neighborhoods, primarily against low-income black and brown folks. While this case is high-profile, hundreds of others have been perpetrated silently in North Oakland. With the current tenants' rights framework, tenants are at an extreme disadvantage against landlords.

The heart of the matter is deeper than gentrification; one must look at the not-so-subtle racism in Oakland's ordinances, and the structures that allow for ongoing oppression and removal of poor folks from their homes and the communities that support them.

By utilizing the racist and classist tools available to them, Morphy and family become, in practice, racist and classist. Regardless of whether they succeed in these two unethical evictions, that should be their cross to bear in Oakland moving forward.

The original court case that forced CA state and local govts to open up their payroll info to the public was brought by the Contra Costa Times some years ago. Up until a couple of years ago their database maintenance was overseen by Pulitzer winning journalist Thomas Peele. It never was a perfect way to compare compensation because of differences in retirement plans and medical benefits but it was better than just listening to local govt and muni union posturing. But it looks like Transparent is the only game in town now. If anyone has proof that Transparent is manipulating the data, we need to know that.

This is an outrage. It deters people from getting help. Yes, there is crime in Oakland. So let them die?? We need to encourage people to seek help, not threaten them. Some cities have made polices that people reporting drug overdoses will not be questioned due to the fact that people were letting their friends die out of fear of obtaining medical help.
And by the way, the Bay Area is high crime.Highland is Oakland's general hospital. Yes black people live here. That does not make patients more dangerous or less worthy.

James McKenzie is dumb enough to believe "Transparent California" an out of state anti-union trump supporting organization. Their website even states: "Transparent California is provided by the Nevada Policy Research Institute(NPRI)"

NPRI's website states: "NPRI created National Employee Freedom Week to let union workers throughout the country know about their right to leave their unions."

So in terms of credibility on the strike in Oakland a bunch of anti-union people in Nevada really have none.